Its December 24th, Christmas Eve and a day after my husband's birthday, for us it's just another day. No decorations, no festivities, no frolicking, no nothing, the only thing that we will do to celebrate this stolen Pagan holiday which is out of the ordinary from our daily routine is tomorrow we will be going to his sister's house. UGH! I didn’t go last year, my husband went on his own. I was angry with her over stuff that occurred during my husband’s recuperation after two weeks of being in a coma and being on a breathing tube. She lied to me about being in agreement between what the rehabilitation center was telling us my husband needed and what he wanted.
It was critical to her that he be hospitalized over the holidays so she could be the center of attention at her big Christmas luncheon she throws annually. She needed the lie, he needed to be in the rehabilitation center so it would give her the opportunity to grand-stand as she would lead in her once per year public demonstration of her loyalty to the Christian god, her very public demonstration of her pain and her thankfulness that he has survived so all could feel sorry for her, everything is, after all, about her.
Lying to me on the phone telling me she supported our effort to have him released before the holiday but telling him he needed to stay, even though at this point he was fine, he was just living with a bunch of old people, most forgotten and left in that home desperately waiting for someone in their family to visit them for 5 minutes, then out the door they would go feeling that they had done something glorious in their martyrdom. The outright lie to me that reinsured her ancient declaration of the control she has over him, the warning she had given me some 30 years prior, control she said she would always have, control resulting from their special bond due to the sexual and physical abuse they both endured at the hands of their step-father while their mother pretended everything was normal and even went so far as to punish them as “liars” when they told her what was happening in their desperate plea for help. She needed her brother to be in rehabilitation because it would reinforce her own martyrdom and devotion to her brother with whom she sees maybe one day per year and that is usually at her party, the one taking place tomorrow (unless he is in the hospital where she will make an obligatory appearance so she can again let her friends know about her sacrifices she has to make by visiting an ailing brother).
Her boldface lie was intended to ensure that she was center of attention at her holiday party, she had an agenda that included a prayer, to put her at the front of the room, he standing next to her, a puppet on display, while she praised their evil god (not the doctors who had saved him) and thanking this so called "creator" for sparing him his life. (Fuck that! We went through hell because of her god damned creator!) A once a year obligatory praise to a god whom she never mentions or speaks of during any other time of the year, yes, she would be glorious and admired for her self-sacrifices, her mourning during this difficult time in her life, all at the expense of her brother’s health issues. If he were to be released, not still confined (or imprisoned) to this rehabilitation center than the burden on her would seem so much less of an intrusion on her personal life, there would be less sympathy to be gained from all her family and friends who would encircle her as she read her dubious praises of worship and thankfulness.
Her selfishness aside, she wouldn't be the one sitting in the "Old Age" home for the next two to three weeks, alone, surrounded by abandoned parents, elderly amputees, people with severe mental issues, and an occasional patient similar to my husband that was recovering from a surgery, one who didn't have family to care for them or their recovery being too intense to be left alone at any time. But the difference here was that my husband was nearly back to his old self, other than a raspy voice from intubation tube that has been inserted in his throat for two weeks while he was in a coma at the hospital he was back to himself, in health and temperament. The only reason he was in the rehabilitation center was because I needed to go to work and he could not care for himself the first week especially with our three big dogs needing care.
There was a miscommunication between the hospital staff and the administration. My husband was able to walk the entire building on his own and we did this almost every time I visited him however somehow is was being reported he couldn't even walk 20 steps without assistance (as cane, a walker, an aide) and needed help dressing himself. Now as the person bringing him clean clothes and visiting almost daily (while he hadn't seen or heard from his sister nearly the entire visit since being transferred from the hospital to this recovery center) I witnessed his ability to change his clothes and I sat and watched during his mild cardiac rehabilitation sessions where he was treated like a man incapable of caring for himself despite his insistence to the technicians assisting him he was fine explaining to them he often walked the building with me when I visited, but the administrator of the hospital said that since he "couldn't walk 20 feet without assistance" (and I knew this was incorrect) they wouldn't release him.
I would sit on the visitor chair in his room as he would cry because he wanted to go home, telling me about the crazy person, who I rarely saw in the room during my visits, but did see what appeared to be a man who had prior to this hospitalization been homeless, filthy, smelly, who shared his room with my husband at night blared the television until 3AM keeping him awake. He said that even though he complained it happened nightly. He was exhausted when he should be getting rest. But his sister, during what I believe was her one and only visit to that center insisted he listen to the administration and stay incarcerated, this after telling me on the phone she agreed he should be home for the holidays.
He cried as he told me of his sister's agreement with the staff and at this point he was so angry he began getting mean with the hospital personnel. His birthday and Christmas were coming up and even though we don't celebrate the latter he wanted to be home and because he was yelling now at the administrative staff and told the person running the "joint" to get the fuck out of his room or he would hit her they threatened to call the police to report an incident. I couldn't believe this was happening, all because we wanted him home there was now the possibility he might end up being charged with assault! This was too much because of his sister's support of the administration's determination (which I'm sure it was made because of the healthy insurance check they were receiving) he was being detained. That is until surprisingly, his anger (of which I have described in this blog in previous postings, he can get quite mean) got him released early. The young woman who had made the decision to keep him was afraid of him. Ironically I walked up behind her only a day earlier at the coffee counter located in the lobby of the facility (a oxymoron of what is found behind the doors of the facility, not viewable to the public, a clean modern tastefully decorated counter selling gourmet coffees and pastries to visiting families) complaining to the coffee clerk about my husband, telling the clerk he had "threatened" her with physical violence.
I was surprised when he called me only a day or two before his birthday (my memory fades) and told me to come pick him up. I did and we had a happy homecoming where my dogs ran up to him with sheer joy to see their daddy again, after almost 2 months of being away and my being alone to care for them, the house, going to work and after visiting him, spending so much time...lost, while his sister planned her big holiday party. There was no way I was going to go to that shindig so my husband drove himself to her event (which was definitely reckless and disconcerting to me but I was firm in my resolution not to attend). It was important to him to be with his family and more important to his sister that she have her display of sympathy there in the room which she would have ensured should he have been in the rehabilitation telling me her husband would pick him up and return him again, that there was no way she would allow him to spend "Christmas day in that hell-hole", yes even she referred to it as a terrible place to be but I took her insistence as yet another reminder that she could and would "keep her brother from me" whenever she wanted. (Her 30 year old claim of possession).
You know I have admitted in this blog I’m not a good person, and I know this to be true. While I have yet to share things that have occurred during my life, things still rolling through my head that will one day make it to this blog, I probably deserve a very public retribution, something recommended from your loving bible, a public stoning, a crucifixion, or some unimaginable horrible way to die that only your demented god or the authors of the bible could imagine. I’m not a warm cuddly individual, I was brought up as my mother’s son and until her last decade or so she was not a warm cuddly individual either.
I asked a friend recently why it is so easy for people to not like me? Why they find that they can say and do things to me they would never consider doing to other people they know. He said it comes from me, my attitude, he responded that I take things too personally and tend to go overboard. He gave an example as when someone is critical of me for something I did or something I said, something that isn’t in agreement with my point of view I seem to take it personally and they can sense my reaction and then things become uncomfortable and they don't like being around a person that makes them uncomfortable. He said instead of just letting stuff roll off my back I harp on it and don’t forget it and he’s right. (Look at this blog, I'm harping even now). But this is the way I was brought up and between my mother and my elder brothers I had always learned that people expect you to forgive and forget things they say and do but when it came to us they would never let it go and never let us forget it. They want our forgiveness but they want to punish us forever. Its as if my family has this curse of where anything we say and do is something never forgotten and never forgiven and yes my mother did refer to it as a curse, our family and its luck.
I know my friend is right in his opinion. I do feel like everything I ever do or say is always held against me and never forgiven or forgotten, but yet I am expected to forgive those that would react in the same manner. Just like President Trump, he said he could shoot someone on Broadway in New York and be forgiven and even honored, but let the average person do the same and they will be arrested and punished. There are two sets of standards…I can see someone I haven’t seen in 20 years and instead of thinking about all the good things I knew and remember about that person all I seem to recall are all the things they said and did in reaction to something I said or did. I wonder if they have something they are still holding against me, even after 20 years, what could I have said or done that somewhere, somehow that person is retaining in the back of their mind. I am being punished forever, never forgiven and I know this is in my head, my own doing. Many times I am the culprit that reminds them of the incident which they claim to have forgotten. Why do I do this? Why do I speak? Why do I say things that bring so much ire on myself?
Whenever somebody is critical of me I do, as my friend indicated, feel like I'm personally attacked even when I know it probably was not meant as a personal attack, regardless of how they meant it and its me they won’t forgive and forget because I don’t believe that they have forgiven and forgotten even when the claim to not remember. So when I see them again, regardless of passing of time I am sensitive to what they might be thinking of me and in turn I am defensive, on often remind the person even without meaning to do so.
But that said even though I’m this horrible person, this monster whose atrocities may never be forgiven, I try to be nice and care for people but it seems to me all people remember is “Isn’t that the guy that did or said this or that” and then the whispers begin…never forgiven. My mistakes, my unforgivable sins to be remembered forever, a lifetime of punishment for a simple faux pas. Just like the other night on Second Life when I was thrown out of the room for a slip of the tongue, even as an avatar another anonymous person hidden behind a computer people, seem to dislike me, my personality comes through in whatever form I take. It is easy for people to hate, retaliate, and never forgive me. I guess its my negative personality and this exudes from my very soul and people sense this weakness, this negativity that emits from me like a glowing aura letting everyone know "Here's an easy target, lets make him pay for his weakness".
I have tired to be a fun person, open, accepting, sharing, caring, but I know I fail with my every attempt. I am not deserving of acceptance. How can I even pretend to be having fun when people I feel never forget my sins, whenever they look at me they say "There goes that failure", "The guy with the bachelors degree that's a worthless piece of crap because his efforts weren't the same as mine" (having gone to school online in my 40's rather than a brick and mortar institution) or "There's that person that fails at everything he tries to do, even typing a stupid fucking blog without typos. I am a failure. I'm the guy that 10, 15, or 20 years ago did this or that, said this or that, things people sometimes remind me of, this I sometimes remind them of, things I had long forgotten because I didn’t realize at the time that what I said or did, a “faux pas”, an innocent mistake would be an unforgivable sin. But they remember, and remind me. Once my husbands sister said to me in a very mean way "I just don't understand why you are the way you are" and it was not meant in a kind way, she was telling him I was not like everyone else.
I know people don’t like me because I'm always looking at the negative side of life always and people want positive people in their lives, not some doom and gloom creature worried about dying and death, having panic attacks at every twinge of main or movement in their chest, a person obviously depressed worrying about what bad things can happen instead of what good will come out of things.
When I went to the store today I took my dogs for a ride in the van (and before you accuse me of yet another unforgivable sin it was under 40 degrees outside and the windows were lowered enough so they could put their heads out and take in and enjoy the cool air). The real sin of giving my dogs this joyful ride to the store, trying to break the monotony in their lives, my real sin were my own thoughts, thoughts of the unlikely event of my dying in the store while my dogs are in the car: “My God, what if something happens to me? What if I have a heart attack and die in the store? What happens if I drop dead and my dogs are alone in the car?” Of course my husband knew about the 5 minute trip to the store so eventually he would start to wonder where I was if I didn't come home. At some point after the ambulance removed my dead body from the store someone would notice the van with the open windows and the dogs barking like mad as they saw my body being loaded on a gurney. Eventually someone between the store personnel and my husband would realize something is wrong and the dogs would be returned home (not to mention I keep in my wallet a note saying my dogs are alone, listing their names and pleading with, whomever would find my dead body, they please go to my address and ensure that they were being cared for) but what if something does happen and what if I do drop dead standing there in the store line waiting to pay for the spaghetti sauce I was buying for tonight's dinner? What would happen to my poor dogs?
So as you can see (or read) I'm always thinking of the negative side. Whenever I’m in conversation with people I'm always wondering what their thoughts are of me at that moment. I become so consumed and distracted by what they are thinking, what I might have done 20 years earlier to upset them, I'm so focused on the past that instead of enjoying the conversation I'm wondering what they have in mind? Why are they talking to me? How are they are going to use what I say and do against me? How will they backstab me? How are they going to talk about me later? And they sense this, and the next time they see me they will wave from a distance and not engage me, avoiding another uncomfortable conversation.
On the title page of this blog (or home page of Saudade) I use a Frederick Nietzsche quote about he who fights the dragon too long becomes a dragon and he who looks into the abyss too long becomes consumed by the abyss (the quote is something to that effect) and this is what has happened to me I have been thinking negatively so long of everybody and everything all the time I think I have not only become that dragon but I have also fallen into the abyss. I think I’m weird, I think I'm awful, I think I am undeserving, and then I assume that because I perceive myself as all these things I am received as such and the end result is “I don't like myself”